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Pro-Life Training Program Series

ANTI-LIFERS EXPLOIT LAW FOR IMMORAL ENDS

By Janet Baker

As promised in my last column, we’ll now take a look at “law” as a restraint.  We noted that law originates from religion and morality, because laws are promulgated by people according to their religious and moral convictions.

Brian Clowes starts his section by noting that as national morality weakens, law enforcement personnel are reluctant to prosecute crimes when there are no victims willing or able to testify.  

As violent crimes such as murder and rape become more numerous, law enforcement officials are forced to reassess their priorities, as their resources are stretched by the increase in violent crime.  

There is most likely an additional factor behind their unwillingness to prosecute crimes of a sexual nature such as abortion, sodomy, pornography, etc.:  they no longer believe such acts to be crimes because they have been seduced by the anti-life mentality.  

Such is evident in their selective prosecution of crimes against pro-lifers.  Witness the recent vandalism against the Warriors for Life signs, when the police officers would not arrest the vandals.  Police officers are even willing to commit crimes against pro-lifers, as they seek “the path of least resistance.”  This author has personally suffered such insults on more than one occasion.

Some law enforcement officials are unwilling to enforce laws enacted in an era that was more in conformity with Christian morals.  We see moves afoot to remove those laws because “everyone is doing it anyway.”

For evidence of that, we need look no further than Annapolis.  Witness the ongoing struggle to acknowledge that marriage is indeed between one woman and one man.

Moreover, witness the recent debacle that is SB144, the Embryonic Stem Cell Research Act.  With that, we have seen the capitulation of at least two formerly “pro-life” senators and the waffling of our lieutenant governor.  And almost 14 years ago, the Maryland legislature passed one of the most liberal abortion laws in this nation, no doubt to prepare for the demise of Roe v. Wade.

Yes, the anti-life crowd will exploit law to their own immoral ends.  On the one hand, they claim that abortion is okay because it is “the law of the land.”  However, in the wake of the measure recently passed by South Dakota, abortuaries there vow to violate the law.  Their respect for the law is quite selective.

Some pro-lifers focus solely on change of law, as though the main battles will be won there.  Other equally committed pro-lifers, holding that the battle will not be won by law, pay scant if any attention to political matters.

Both approaches, in my opinion, are erroneous.  It clearly is true that passage of laws alone will not address the underlying spiritual issues.  But law does have a vital role that cannot be dismissed by the “prayer only” faction.

The late Martin Luther King Jr. put it succinctly when he said, “I know the law cannot make my white brother love me, but it can keep him from lynching me.”  That echoes St. Thomas Aquinas’ assertion that law was not designed to make men virtuous, but only to establish a modicum of order in civil society.

Laws mostly state what men cannot do.  Examine the Ten Commandments; eight of them are stated in the negative, which probably illustrates well what God intended for law (that is the opinion of this author, who claims no particular theological expertise).

In a republic such as ours (note:  the United States is not a pure democracy; it never was, and was not intended by the Founding Fathers to be such; we are a constitutional republic), we, as a nation, get the leaders we deserve.  Why?  Because we vote them into office, that’s why.

It’s apparent to all, especially in Annapolis, that we won’t change the laws until we change the lawmakers; that is commonly understood among Maryland pro-lifers.  What some don’t realize is that we need to take the process even further back to basic roots, because we won’t change the lawmakers until we change the electorate.

While doing what we can in terms of lobbying, we must focus much more on grass-roots efforts to wake up and activate dormant pro-life people and to make known to those indifferent to abortion and other life issues the truth underlying these issues.

Such efforts must be ongoing, not just when legislative bodies are in session.  Currently, these efforts include our presence in front of the abortuaries and the Warriors for Life displays in Washington, D.C.  They deserve the wholehearted support and participation of every committed pro-lifer.